Tag: Advice

As a SAHD, I'm beginning to feel like a Betamax owner in a VHS world - ask your mum. To be fair, I do try to be quite 'zen' about the stupidity I encounter daily from members of the public. But there's only so much idiocy one man can take...

"I look forward to bin day, I find it strangely cathartic." That bin day or 'Big Bin Day' as we call it our house - in order to distinguish it from the lesser recycling box collection day - is a highlight of my month, surprises me.

I firmly believe that we, as a society, need to find new role models for our boys and young men. We need to do this quickly. Traditionally, we've expected boys to look up to movie stars, sportsmen, musicians, politicians and the business elite. Yet, the starry ensemble has repeatedly shown itself unworthy of this honour.

In the meantime we parents, who have enough on their plate, are beaten with (metaphorical) sticks. Trending hashtags, focusing on parenting perfection, tell us we’re doing it all wrong. Instagram images of perfectly dressed, puke free, angelic children make the rest of us sick to the stomach as we battle to dress our toddlers without WW3 breaking out. Linked-in profiles that show parents simultaneously looking after kids, pursuing an amazing career, charity work, an interesting hobby and maintaining great hair – make the rest of us feel like crap.

I briefly considered trying to wrestle the pouch from the woman, but quickly dismissed the idea. One of the issues of being a large man is that, if discovered fighting with a Miss Marple look-a-like in the Co-op, few people are likely to believe that you didn’t start it.

I Have Poo Tinnitus. It's true. Everywhere I go I can smell a gentle whiff of poo. Where it's coming from I can't tell you. It may be that changing a multitude of nappies has made me especially sensitive to the aroma of fecal matter?

It's these people, and their blissful ignorance, that contemporary parents must learn to navigate around. Like hidden rocks among the flotsam and jetsam of parenting - they must be spotted and avoided if possible.